Showing posts with label April. Show all posts
Showing posts with label April. Show all posts

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Orange Juice and Grass

I am a clutsy person.

I know. Those of you who know me are saying to yourselves, "Whaaa? April, a clutz? I had no idea!"

It's not possible, I know. My whole life I've found the old adage, "Tuesday's child is full of grace," to be quite ironic.

In the last two days I've had two incidents. I find it truly amazing that I have not subjected Olivia to any major harm since she's been born. I'm sure that God assigned an extra portion of angels to watch over that little girl: not because of herself, but because of her close proximity to me.

The first accident was a result of our fridge breaking down. We ended up losing four gallons of milk (they kept curdling) and numerous other freezer and fridge items. We called the fixit man on Friday, who couldn't come until Monday. He then had to order a part and can't fix the fridge until this Friday. He told us that we could get our fridge going until he came back if we turned it off and let it defrost.

In the midst of this fiasco I ended up driving our frozen meat to our in-laws' freezer; putting any unspoiled cold things in our cooler, filling it with ice, and leaving it in our open garage for two days; dealing with a fridge that leaked all this water all over the floor when it defrosted; and more.

It seemed like I was never going to get an opportunity to clean the fridge, which I was excited to do since it was completely empty. I finally got to work on it during Olivia's non-nap. (She non-naps now, did you know? Some days she just sits in her pen crib and talks and sings and pulls on the bars for 2 hours. If hearing that for 2 hours does not fray one's last nerve, I do not know what does.)

I was rushing, trying to complete the job before I had to get Olivia. Since hearing her fooling around like that drives me crazy, I listened to my iPod while I washed. And apparently listening to music impedes one's sense of hearing, as I did not hear, therefore did not realize, that one of the shelves sitting on the counter had started to fall, crashing the orange juice container (which wasn't in the fridge! argh!) to the floor. OJ everywhere. All over the cupboards, all over the rug, floor, me, everywhere. So I had to stop cleaning the fridge to manage that mess.

It turns out that the OJ ran under the stove, and upon pulling out the stove's drawer, I discovered the oven's grody underbelly. It was about a 1/2" pile of red fibers from our old red rugs, interwoven with white Lucy hairs. So really it was more like a 1/2" gray carpet.

Yum.

Now I had to spend my fridge-cleaning time on operation "oven underbelly." The fridge eventually got cleaned. So did my jeans and the kitchen floor and the cupboards...

Yesterday I actually caused bodily harm to myself while I was working in the yard. Olivia loves playing in the yard. She  mostly wanders around, leans over to pretend to smell the dead flowers from last year (she leans over, sniffs, and goes, "mmmmm!!!"), pats the tree, etc. Since she is so happy in the yard, I decided to do some pruning of said dead flowers, etc.

I couldn't find our actual yard clippers, so I was using this really crappy pair of "grass" cutters to cut our ornamental grass down. Apparently the grass cutters are for trimming simple lawn grass blades. I was desperately trying to snip the thick grass stalks in one hand, and pull away the clipped grass with the other. I guess I grabbed a clump that was not successfully cut, so when I forcefully yanked at it, the grass stayed put, and my finger somehow, in sliding along the blades, suffered a huge gash.

And that my friends, is how you cut your hand open using only grass.

It was one of those cuts that is so deep that it doesn't bleed right away. Then it started oozing out of my  hand. I couldn't just run in to take care of it because I didn't want to leave O in the yard alone. So I had to snatch her up in one hand while cupping a hand of blood in the other. Then I saw her beautiful blue and white polka dot hat laying on the ground (that girl loves wearing her hats!). I couldn't leave that out there!

To make a longer story shorter, I somehow managed to get the dog in the house (sans gate to keep her in the yard), the child, and the hat. I had to to this all without letting on that there was a problem, or else O might become upset and hinder my bandaging efforts. At one point I was trying to turn on the TV to pacify her and blood was running through my fingers onto the back of my hand. It was about to splash onto the floor, which would have caught her interest and caused even more problems as she tried to play with it.

I eventually got the mischief managed, thanks to Neosporin and a big Spiderman bandaid.

And now I'm leary about what today will bring. Don't things always happen in threes? I'm about to unload the dishwasher and mop the kitchen floor. Wish me luck...

Friday, January 8, 2010

Guess who?

Tonight as I was searching for something else I stumbled upon this photo:


Holy crap! Either my Mom got some botox done, or Olivia went back in time to 1979! I look so cute I want to hug me! It is sooo weird to see my likeness in someone else.

Here is an actual photo of Mom and Olivia. Yep, O has my hair (and my Mom's)--sorry, O!



And Marian and Olivia, where you can see the side profile likeness.



On a related note, my mom saw this photo in an album that my cousin Bonnie made for Granny for Christmas. Mom said, "How did you get that photo of me and April??"


(To give her credit, back in the day she did have a shirt exactly like this one...)

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Weigh-In, 6/2


Weight change for the week:

JB: -1.8 lbs April: +.6

Weight change to date:

JB: -1.4 April: -2.8


Hmmm....now the race is a little more even. This would be okay for me, save that I GAINED this week. Good Lord, do I have to cut out ALL my desserts?!??? And I can't stop this diet now. I have two prizes in mind, both equally special to me.

The first prize that I thought of was fabric for my nine-patch quilt that will have Civil War reproduction fabric. Or perhaps some fabric for K's citrus quilt, which is next on my docket after Olivia's quilt (which is stalled because I'm still working on our stupid drapes! Those things are taking FOR-EV-ER).

But yesterday I stopped in at a funky shop in Easttown, Gallery 154, and there was a selection of cool framed vintage Michigan travel posters that I must have. They're a
t a great price, considering they're double-matted and professionally framed. So perhaps my prize can be to get one of those. I love vintage travel posters. And ones of Michigan and the Great Lakes, which I haven't seen before, is mega-cool.

The closest one I've found online is this, which is even more fabulous than the ones at the store, but just the POSTER in 18x24 is $50. Whatever. I am not desperate enough to pay $50 for a piece of paper.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Weigh-In, 5/26

Weigh-in for last night:

JB: no weight loss
April: -3.4 lbs

Yay, me! I've officially reached my pre-pregnancy weight.

However I think that even if I lose the extra 20-25 lbs that I need to, I'll still have this dang spare tire around my gut, where my child stretched me out. I've been faithfully doing my killers and crunchers every day (I never thought I'd say this, but, Thank you, Mr. Collon) but the tire remains. Olivia has been watching me do my exercises and I explained to her that SHE is the one who did this to me. Then she looked at me as if to say, "But Mama, look at how CUTE I am. Sometimes you have to endure horrible things to get cuteness." Then she picked up the dog's rubber toy and put it in her mouth.

Monday, January 19, 2009

The Two Little Engines That Couldn't

Last week ended with the coughing splutter of car issues.

April has Fridays off each week and so we dropped my car off at the local Ford dealer to have it's oil changed and have it checked out. I thought I may have some alignment issues - in fact I have over $1000 in issues, alignment included. All basic maintenance stuff, new tires, boots, alignment, oil change, power steering flush, stabilizer bar. Yeah, fun. We had them fix two on the list and left the less dire fixes for later.

On our way to pick up my "clunker" on Saturday we kept smelling exhaust in April's car. With the weather being as cold as it has been, low teens to below zero, cars tend to act funny. I thought maybe snow got stuck in the exhaust or the other cars were expelling extra noxious fumes. At the dealer, while I was paying for my car, April noticed steam rising from the hood and decided to have the mechanics check it out.

Chalk one up for April! Her gas line was leaking gasoline all over the engine. Apparently, there was friction between the line and the engine cover that slowly ate away at the line until it broke through that Saturday. Thankfully it was only a $150 fix, but it's $150 we don't have to put towards my new tires.

Boo.

This week can't be any worse, but I'm hoping it's better. At least the sun was shining today, and my beard is looking especially dashing.

On an unrelated note, I've decided that I'm going to shave a unique look for St Patties Day. I'll post the evidence afterwards.

"Where's April?" you might ask. She's busy trying to balance the baby with life in general that she isn't able to slow down and blog out her life. So you're all stuck with me. I know. You'll have to deal.

Tomorrow is Obama's historic inauguration. I'm hoping he can live up to his hype. While you're all watching history, I'll be worrying about my brother. He's still my little brother and it's a big brother job to look out for him! If you think about it send some prayers his way tomorrow.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Crop dusting with April

"JB, I'm concerned the bird is teething."

What the H?!? Teething? At three months?!?

April is crazy...

Thursday, January 8, 2009

First! or How I Start 2009 with a Blog-dump...

I tried to give April ample opportunity to be the first to blog in the new year, but to no avail - soooo...

Happy (late) New Year!

I think I should start the year off right sharing some of my favorite things of the moment.

First, may I admit something to all you wonderful friends and acquaintances out there in cyber space? I'm a knitter. Yes I've started with simple scarves and now I'm working on hats. Before you know it I'll be making sweaters too. I've been so bored at work that I already completed a scarf for myself and I've been commissioned to make April a scarf and my bro-in-law a custom hat. I'm learning as I go, and I've gotten plenty of grieve from my male coworkers. Of course they're all just jealous. What woman doesn't want a guy who can knit?

Again because of workplace boredom, I discovered the YouTube channel Indy Mogul. It's a site that is dedicated to the backyard film maker, which I'm not. Regardless, it's got all sorts of cool stuff on how to make you own special effects on the cheap. After they explain the method, they also produce a short test film to show off the effect. It's badass. It make me want to run out and buy a video camera. And build a light saber.

Left 4 Dead!!!! It's a first person shooter cooperative video game for the Xbox 360. You and three friends have to survive a zombie apocolypse. Brains... What's not to love? It's tense and fun and awesome. It's like playing a zombie movie.

Sister Annie is staying with us. yeAH!

I pick up a haul of Holiday goodies including but not limited to - Dark Knight, HIMYM season 3, Lost season 4, Wall-E, and a couple of boardgames Race for the Galaxy and Argicola.

Yeah that's about it. Nothing really spectacular or amusing. Lives goes on with the wife, baby, dog, and now sister-in-law. Hopefully we can get back and stay on the blog-wagon.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

3 vs 13

Today was sister Anne and sister Melissa's graduations from Oakland U. (Congrats ladies!) So we loaded up April's Grand Prix and hit the road. My mom had called the night before to let us know that my cousin Emily was going to be visiting and that she really wanted to meet baby O.

Congrats Emily you were the first extended Bier family member to meet and interact with Liv! Don't let it go to your head... :)





fyi- Olivia doesn't seem to be a Cher fan.

Of course by the time we had left "The Hilton" we were late. So I took it upon myself to make up some time by using my handy lead foot. Mid-eighties in a seventy mile per hour expressway isn't too bad, but unfortunately the police officer didn't agree.

-Austin, this is the second time your "magic" sticker has failed us. For shame.-

I can't fault the guy for doing his job. And to be fair I WAS speeding. But it still sucks. Also he was probably the most abrupt police officer April or I had ever dealt with.

No asking if I knew why he was pulling me over.

No asking why I was speeding.

Just, "License. Registration. Proof of insurance. I read you going 84 in a 70." And he walked away.

Boo.

This is my third moving violation in my twelve years of driving. I've got a lot of work to catch up to April's thirteen.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Olivia May: baby model

By popular demand, a better baby pic...



April and Olivia are good and will be home tomorrow afternoon. I'm geeked!

Saturday, October 11, 2008

She's HERE!!!



Everyone welcome Olivia May.

Born: 10-11-08 5:30pm
Weight: 8 lbs 13 ounces
Length: 22 inches

After sixteen hours in the hospital Olivia was evicted from April's womb. Both baby and mom are doing great, dad too. More pictures to follow after I make my way out of this delirious haze.

Monday, October 6, 2008

ED Day +1

It's one day past the estimated delivery day.

All day yesterday I was on edge. Whenever April made a comment about aches or baby movement I immeadiately asked if it, labor- of course, was starting. April has a OB appointment Tuesday and if the baby hasn't arrived they will schedule an inducement date. I've got mixed feelings about inducement. It would be nice to have a "concrete" date that the baby will arrive, but it puts more stress on the baby. Either way, by ED Day +12 baby H will be out and about.

Enough waiting. I'm ready for this fatherhood business.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

The Laundry Handicap

To preface, I love my wife and I am by no means perfect, but...

April is handicapped when it comes to the household chore of laundry. Seriously.

I work an unusual shift, 10am to 8pm, which limits the time I have to do chores in the evening. Tonight after stopping by Home Depot (aka the Homo) to pick up some house stuff I rushed home to grab a bite to eat and watch a little TV with April. We've been coveting lowkey one-on-one hang out time because soon this will be a thing of the past. After the show April gets up and tells me she's going to surf the net a bit and then go to bed. No biggie. So I let the dog out and noticed that the basement light was on. When I trudged down stairs I saw laundry.

Three bins stood full to the brim. Clothes crushed down into them.

April always complains about laundry. "Didn't we just finish this?" she always asks. And I always reply, "If you did the laundry in one evening, you wouldn't feel like you were perpetually doing laundry." When I do the laundry, I COMPLETE the laundry. I run everything through both the washer and the dryer and fold and put away everything. Conversely, when April does the laundry it takes about a week. She gets the first load all the way through the machines and it ends up on a chair in the living room. The second load stalls somewhere in the dryer and never makes it way out. The other two (or three if it's been awhile) lie in piles on our bedroom floor for me to trip over the next several days.

"April if you feel like you're always doing laundry; sweetie, it's because you are."

In the course of our wonderful 5+ years together April's laundry deficiency has continued if not worsened. I guess I should be thankful she has stopped ruining my clothes in the wash.

I've explained to her numerous times that I am more than happy and capable to do the laundry. Still April keeps on making her attempts. *sigh* Methinks, it's time for me to become the full time launderer once again.



Monday, September 8, 2008

Weekend Warrior

Well my weekend went by in a whirlwind! But that was fine by me because I had a lot of fun.


On Friday, Lulu got her haircut and nails trimmed so now she’ll be fashionable for photos with Baby H and will stop tripping on the stairs because of her long nails. Since she had gotten banned from PetSmart (for story, click here), I took her to a private groomer who did a fabulous job with her. Even better than a red bow from PetSmart, Lucy got a pink bandana!


Saturday got kicked off with my Grand Rapids baby shower.


My mom and sisters all came from east Michigan for it, and there was the usual sisterly drama involved. This time Krystal was not ready at her dorm when they got to East Lansing, so they left her behind and she had to drive herself. There was much phone calls and discussion about all this while I was trying to get ready. One would think that Krystal was at fault for not being home at the appointed time, but she preferred to lay the blame on Anne. Haha.


“Didn’t you miss out on not having sisters?” I teased JB.


JB’s Aunt Helen, Aunt Rhonda, and cousin Sarah from Tennessee also attended the shower, though I think they arrived with less issue than the Teagues.


Again, I was shocked by everyone’s generosity. As my mom put it, “I got the mother lode!”


One of the gifts that JB had put on the registry that we did not receive was the video game Rock Band for his Xbox 360. Every time we go to Target JB asks if we can buy Rock Band, which is $165. Baby registry day was no different. I had told him, “No,” as usual. “Fine then. I’ll just register for it!” he had said. So he did. And now everyone asks why Rock Band is on there.


I thought it would be funny when we got home from the shower to tell JB that we DID get Rock Band from Tommy, who thought it would be a good gift for the baby.


“What? No we didn’t,” said JB. “…..did we?” He looked around at the presents.


“He was home last weekend and sent it with Mom today,” we said.


“Really? I don’t believe you,” he replied.


We then admitted that it was a trick, which JB said was a very mean trick. He didn’t really believe us, but had started to develop a small glimmer of hope nonetheless.


I thought it was quite funny. I also think that the baby does NOT need rock band.


After the shower the Teagues also showered me with more presents of cool hand-me-downs that they nabbed from different places. Mom and I discussed things that I have yet to obtain for baby and I mentioned having to shop for a breast pump.


“What! No! Don’t do the breast pump! Those things are terrible!” she exclaimed. This outburst got everyone’s attention, including poor JB, the only guy in the house.


“Well, what the hell am I supposed to do when I’m at work, Mom?”


“Just do it yourself! It’s much less painful. Those breast pumps will mangle your boobs!”


“You want me to milk myself, like a cow?”


Yes, she did want me to milk myself like a cow. I told her that I would not be doing that. She said that perhaps technology has advanced since she last knew about pumps. I said that none of my friends have come to me with horror stories, so I think it’s safe these days. Mom is still quite leary.


Then someone brought up borrowing a breast pump from a friend and Krystal was horrified, “That’s disgusting! I would never use a breast pump that belonged to someone else!”


Annie looked over at her. “This from the girl who has no issue with wearing other people’s underwear?”

Annie's got ya there, K!


Before they left, we all went to dinner at Yen Ching. It was JB and us five Teagues. As we entered the restaurant Mom said to JB, “Look, JB and all these women. It’s like a polygamist colony and we’re your wives. Well, except for me. That would just be weird.”


But JB having four sisters for wives wouldn’t be weird?


After they left JB turned to me and said (as he always does), “I’m really glad we got to hang out with your family today. I had a lot of fun. I really like your family.”


That’s because, well, the Teagues are entertaining even when they’re just being themselves.


After dinner JB, Lucy, and I went directly to the Hilton to hang out with the Tennessee family. There, Lucy wowed the crowd with her dog tricks and jumping Jack Russell legs.


Sunday was church, Crochet Day with some work friends, and then Bible Study baby shower. (Again, more wonderful gifts and love felt from everyone.)


Kristen and Seth gave us this really funny gag book and magnets about how not to raise your baby. There were nice drawings to accompany it. For instance, after bathing the baby, should you a.) dry baby with a towel or b.) put baby in clothes dryer? Apparently, the answer is A. My uncles and cousins have tried drying their sibs in the dryer, and my siblings and I played in the dryer plenty of times (without being brave enough to turn it on, probably because of the horror story that mom told us about the little boy who got cooked to death in a dryer) but I guess we should wait until the kid is old enough to play in the dryer herself and not start her out at such a young age. Besides, my mom gave me these wonderful hooded bath towels that I’m really excited to use instead.


Tonight we had dinner at the Hilton. Sooo good. Then we played a crossword game, where I was given a hard time for spelling Whore. I'd like to point out that others who were playing spelled much naughtier words! You know who you are! :)




Sunday, August 10, 2008

We're Baa-aack!






We have returned from our super-awesome vacation in da UP. I love going to the cabin and was very sad to leave it this morning.

The child in my womb has been furiously kicking my innerds and ribs, so I will have to write about our fun later. Here are some pics, though:

Monday, June 23, 2008

I don't think you should eat that

Each week April and I attempt to follow our pregnancy progress in the book Your Pregnancy: Week by Week. The book is full of descriptions of how the baby is growing and the changes to expect as well as tips for healthy living with a baby inside you. There is quite a bit of good and interesting information and quite a bit of information for those who need to know EVERYTHING that could possibly go wrong. Needless to say we only read the applicable entries.

Last night as I was getting ready for bed I heard April read, "Are you concerned about Anthrax?" WTH? Anthrax? This should have been an indication of this week's reading which went something this like...

[I'm reading from an article titled Some Alternative Food Choices]
J:To help control a sweet tooth, limit yourself to a 100 calories of candy a day - a handful of jelly beans---
A:A handful of chili beans?!?
J:No, a handful of jelly beans.
A:That's a handful of bullshit.

Ladies and gentlemen this is my wife...

and i love her just the way she is.

Saturday, May 31, 2008

One is the loneliest number

April is out of town this weekend visiting her family; which means that this is one of those rare occasions were I am all alone for a couple of days. It's funny how I'm unsure how to operate without her. Here's what I mean...

Last night I stayed up WAY too late playing video games, so I slept in. Sleeping usually means staying in bed until 10:30 or 11:00 - without April to goad me to get up I arose at the early hour of 12:45. I got up an got to work on painting the house (it's one of my big summer projects). I worked and worked and then decided to check the time and it was 5:45. At this point and time I realized that I hadn't eaten since 8pm Friday night and I had totally missed our friend's baby's birthday party. I also realized that the reason I felt all weird was because my stomach was going nuts due to lack of food. Usually April would have brought me some food at some point in the afternoon and then made me think about dinner ideas. At this point and time I debated eating, but decided to finish the last coat of paint. Another hour and a half later I was done - exhausted and famished - but done. I ended up grabbing some crappy fast food and spending an hour or two with the friends.

This all made me hyper-aware of how much I rely on April to keep me straight. It's sort of ridiculous. I mean, I'm a grown man (I have a beard!) I should be able to look after myself. I take solace in thinking that if I was on my own more often, I'd take better care of myself. I think I would at least. I'm an idiot either way... So I know that this a weird way to say that I know I belong with April, but there it is.

And now I'm going to bed so I don't over sleep church. I've got another long day of paint and chores ahead and I needs me some dose of churchy.